The Empire State Building Celebrates 95 Years as the 'World's Most Famous Building'

[Goonch]

"The Empire State Building (ESB), the “World’s Most Famous Building,” will celebrate its 95th anniversary on May 1, 2026, with new offers at the Empire State Building Observation Deck, a special birthday tower lighting display, and a slate of celebrations to honor its legacy and future."

[Kid Berwyn]

1. Amazing Architecture Attracted Attention of A-1 Asshole

The Empire State Building And The Art Of Trump's Deal

by Jim Zarroli
NPR, May 10, 2016

Excerpt…

In the early 1990s, Trump was in one of his periodic rough patches as a businessman, having defaulted on $1 billion worth of debt during one of New York's real estate downturns. Then one day his second wife, Marla Maples, happened to meet Kiiko Nakahara at a gym. Nakahara suggested she and Trump meet to talk about the Empire State Building, says Raymond Hannigan of the law firm Herrick Feinstein. Nakahara was the daughter of one of Japan's richest and most notorious men, Hideki Yokoi, who was widely thought to have ties to organized crime and was then doing time in prison.

Over the years, Yokoi had been rapidly buying up showcase properties in Europe and the U.S., among them the landmark art deco Empire State Building, says Hannigan, who was involved in the litigation over the building. Yokoi's interests in the building were controlled by Nakahara.

But Yokoi made surprisingly little money out of the building. Previous owners had signed a very long-term lease with a firm controlled by two of New York's most powerful real estate barons, Harry Helmsley and Lawrence Wien. Meeting with Nakahara, who knew little about Manhattan real estate, Trump proposed a time-honored New York strategy: the two of them would go to court to try to break the lease.

According to Peter Slatin, a hotel consultant and former journalist who covered New York real estate for publications such as Barron's and The Wall Street Journal, Trump essentially told Nakahara, "What if we got rid of [the owners] and we take over the building? And you don't have to do anything. I'm going to do all the work. I'm going to do all the heavy lifting."

Continues…

https://www.npr.org/2016/05/10/477041094/the-empire-state-building-and-the-art-of-trumps-deal

[CanonRay]

2. Ummmm the Taj Mahal, Tower of London? The Coliseum?

American exceptionalism again.

[newdeal2]

3. Just typical NY bragging

It is an iconic skyscraper however.

[Martin Eden]

5. Great Pyramid of Egypt

Fllowed by the House of the Rising Sun.

[malaise]

4. Love it

Rec